Chapter 3 by students, doctors, lawyers, teachers and other professional bodies. Thus, in order to serve his populist aspirations while staying in power, Acheampong proposed the Union Government (UNIGOV) option. Owusu posits that the idea of a Union Government was to address the need for a constitutional'third way', a representative democracy based neither on the Westminster style two-party system nor on military rule, but on tradition, values, and indigenous political beliefs, ideals and practices of Ghanaians(Owusu, 1979:89). Acheampong envisaged UNIGOV as a compromise between his military rule and the democracy option for which broad sections of the population were fighting. However, this proposal, although'ratified' by a controversial referendum on 30 March 1978, met with sustained opposition through strikes and demonstrations, prompting the palace coup of 5 July 1978 in which Acheampong was deposed by his military colleagues led by General Frederick Akuffo and the inauguration of the Supreme Military Council II(SMC-II). This internal political restructuring notwithstanding, the pressure continued to mount on the military regime to return the country to civilian rule. As indicated earlier, political and popular legitimacy is achieved through the strong performance of a regime to right the wrongs of a previous administration. Failure to do this and inadequate use of populist rhetoric and propaganda to'ride the storm' inevitably leads to failure, as Akuffo tragically discovered a year later when he was executed. Attempts were made by the SMC II to stabilize the economy by reducing inflation. One such attempt was the demonetization of the cedi, in which the new cedi's value was set at more than 30 percent of the old cedi. The money-changing exercise led to a feeling of disillusionment on the part of workers, 81